


Whiskey and Shears

by amberite



Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Conversation, F/M, Gender Dysphoria, canonical undesired sex change, friendly verbal sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberite/pseuds/amberite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"Do not for a moment think that my - ah - predicament makes me a - a </em>cabaret show<em>." He spoke in clipped tones that were no less fraught with brittle dignity for all their being in the soprano-alto range, a voice that tended to warble with unevenness when he hit the edges of its range unexpectedly. </em></p><p><em>That was happening less now, except when he was startled. He was getting </em>used<em> to it.</em></p><p>
  <em>Adri wondered if that were a good thing or a bad thing.</em>
</p><p>For a rather unorthodox paladin, courting a Thayvian red wizard presents enough difficulty even when he's feeling like himself. But he hasn't been himself lately, exactly, and that makes life more difficult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whiskey and Shears

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Person](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Person/gifts).



"Do not look, Adri. Do not for a moment think that my - ah - predicament makes me a - a _cabaret show_." He spoke in clipped tones that were no less fraught with brittle dignity for all their being in the soprano-alto range, a voice that tended to warble with unevenness when he hit the edges of its range unexpectedly. 

That was happening less now, except when he was startled. He was getting _used_ to it.

Adri wondered if that were a good thing or a bad thing.

"I wasn't coming to ogle you. Edwin." The name felt rusty with disuse, sounded sharply in the night breeze - he wouldn't let her call him by his right name in public; she had a feeling it was because the strange looks would just make him feel worse. "If I were that idiotic, you'd tolerate my company a lot less than you do, wouldn't you? Give me some credit, at least. I was coming by to ask if you were okay." He interjected a noise of protest, which would be a paragraph of protest, she was sure, very shortly if she didn't continue, rolling smoothly into - "Other than the obvious problem, I mean." 

It was even obvious in the semi-dark, the curves of his body silhouetted by the witchlight against the canvas tent flaps that separated them. 

Adri wondered, not for the first time, whether the scroll that had gotten him into this mess was a purposely placed, malicious practical joke. A trap set up for him by an enemy or a spurned lover. _She_ didn't have hips like that, or breasts like that, and she would have thought that if the only effect of the magic were to change his physical sex, it would have given him... well, she thought it would have sculpted an altogether different form. 

If he had become this way naturally, she thought, if he had been born this way - she could picture the result in her mind's eye, a coltish girl with square shoulders and small breasts, a dainty chin and a strong nose. It wasn't an unpleasant image; somehow she thought he wouldn't _mind_ being shaped like that, so much. That at least it would be better than being this... this voluptuous caricature, this body he was so completely adrift in. 

"Your solicitous behavior is growing tiresome, Adri. I would think it disingenuous, except for how transparently obvious it is that I am one of your pet projects. You really like collecting us, don't you, paladin? A rag-tag band of the wicked, on whom you can exert your reforming influence -"

"I just thought you might like someone to talk to. Come on, Edwin. Flap your mouth for a little while, please? Or do you need help? Could it be you're out of practice with your mighty vocabulary?" The digs rolled off her tongue gently, but not too gently; just sharp enough to wake him from his funk, to bring a little piece of their normal verbal sparring back into view.

Adri felt like she was walking on a tightrope. Too smart-mouthed and he'd Dimension Door back into the land of avoidance; but if she let one note of pity slip through into her voice at the wrong time, he'd cut off the conversation entirely.

He needed to break down, was the trouble, needed to dig deep into his worst frustrations and fears. All day she'd felt it like a building storm, a tight cocoon of heavy air around his skin. But equally desperately he would let no one see that; not even her. 

The 'please' gave him an angle, clearly. "Since you beg me so pathetically, Adri, it _does_ motivate me to answer your request." By the tone in his voice she could tell he was going to hold this over her every time she asked him to be quiet for a moment, but she was willing to accept the tradeoff. "Have you a topic of choice for this mouth-flapping you hold in such high esteem? Or shall I simply hold a recitation of the greatest Thayvian poets (despite being excellent at many things, I will warn you that my people write horribly dry and formal stuff when it comes to poetry) until I'm too hoarse to cast tomorrow?"

"It's okay," Adri said, "no need for poems. I have whiskey."

"But is it _good_ whiskey?" The Red Wizard was perking up and no mistake.

She grinned. "Well, you won't find out until you let me in there, will you? And again, before you start protesting, I'm not here to ogle you. Look, if I wanted to see your distress, I could find a lot more creative ways to make you cry."

"It is as I keep telling you, Adri, you _do_ have potential for viciousness under all that bland affection for justice..."

"Is that a yes?"

"That is a yes." He nudged the flap aside.

She stepped into the tent and sat herself on the edge of his cot. "Whiskey," she said, and produced the leather flask.

Edwin uncorked it, bent over it gracelessly, sniffed the rising alcohol fumes. His hair fell into his eyes and he shoved it back again, irritably. "Not bad, not bad." He tossed back a long swig, then recorked the flask and set it down. "I could almost call your taste civilized. Where did you get this?"

"The last merchant had some in the back," Adri said. Then, "-- I'm fairly sure you're allowed to get a haircut. Hair is dead. I don't think it will impede your efforts to transform back. Not that I know anything about this stuff, being not a wizard and all." 

Edwin flinched, and crossed his arms. They flopped, awkwardly, as if unclear whether they should fold above or below his pendulous breasts, and finally settled for an awkwardly hunched posture that hid as much of his anatomy as possible.

"You didn't think you were going to be stuck this way long enough to need a haircut, did you." Adri made it a statement, not a question. Gods, her heart was cracked in half with sympathy; she wanted to cradle the forlorn mage to herself and not let go. But she shoved those thoughts from herself; didn't let her voice be anything but stern and scolding. Because she knew that if she went easy on him, he'd throw her out of the tent bodily.

She could feel it in the way he stood there, closed in on his awkward female body as if he were trying to corner a beast inside himself.

"So what if I didn't?" he said, defensively. His high voice came out sharp, probably shriller than he'd intended, then damped down to a bitter murmur. "It is so rare in my experience to run across an enchantment I cannot unravel with ease. Perhaps I should have expected that an artifact of such power could best me." He unfolded his clumsy curvature long enough to pick up the whiskey and take another swig. "You've earned your I-told-you-so, Adri. Do you thrill with the prospect of using it?"

"No," Adri said. 

"You have me at a disadvantage, Adri. At a disadvantage, and mildly tipsy on your remarkably crafted booze - by my own decision, I might add. Don't deny you crave this."

"Yes, I do," she said quietly. "But not in this way." She leaned forward heavily and ran her fingers through her hair. "Not that I would refuse you if you asked, I mean. But I won't be cruel."

Edwin chuckled, a sibilant sound that for a moment recalled his usual laugh even if it was an octave wrong. "You wouldn't refuse me if I asked, you say?"

"That's been true for a while, now."

" _Now_ the righteous little minx tells me," he muttered to himself. "Now, when I cannot even--"

"There are other ways to have me," Adri said. She hadn't even drank any of the whiskey, so her lips trembled when the rest of the statement came tumbling out. "Those scarves you favor could tie around my eyes. Your fingers seem quite nearly unaffected." She was used to making over-the-top remarks to startle him out of a mood, but this one was so brash that she startled herself, and sat there for a moment, mutely, regarding his eyes, as if she could just have the look in them, hungry and vulnerable, while the rest of his body left the room. He still hadn't spoken, and she went on. "We could make memories. In case the next fight is my last. So something of me endures with you - long after you get this fixed, which I've no doubt you will. So I can worm my way into your head and exert my moral influence from beyond." That last with a hint of humor. 

"And you would no doubt cry the name of your righteous god when you--" _That_ was the old Edwin, lovingly, unsparingly vicious, and Adri couldn't help but grin a little.

"Can't promise I wouldn't anyway. Just to make you squirm."

"I'll pass, thank you. At least for tonight," Edwin said lightly, but there was this considering tone that made her inordinately happy. "I still have a number of spells to rehearse, and then I might take the downright incredible option of _sleeping_. Tomorrow will doubtless be as much of a neck-riskingly heroic escapade as today was, if you have any say in the matter, which you _always_ do, of course. But you could do one thing for me. If I could have you any way I pleased."

"...And what way would you like to have me, Edwin?" Adri asked dryly. His request was going to be something inane and irritating, she could just feel it. 

But it wasn't.

"I would like to have your hands - at my brow - with a pair of shears. Because, much as I hate to admit that someone other than me has managed to put forth a bright idea, I have determined that I have no _concept_ of how anyone puts up with this ridiculous malarkey of having hair over the face, and I am _not_ going to be _indisposed_ for long enough for the - the bangs to grow out, believe you me. So. You must snip them to stubs. Have none of your usual mercy. These hairs in front, I assure you, are absolutely miscreants and _abominations unto everything you hold righteous_ and you must eradicate them at once. (There. I have put it in terms appropriate to her calling, yes?) All the hairs in back have been upstanding citizens. They can remain standing. But the ones in front simply _must go._ " He sat down on the cot next to her and rummaged through the implements in his pack. 

"Not a stray bang will hide from the blazing light of my justice," she said, not hiding her smile. "I promise."

**Author's Note:**

> The protagonist is called Adri because I wanted you to be able to read your character into it if it works as her - and if it doesn't, I didn't want the characterization to be jarring and it can be someone else!
> 
> When I saw your request on the Dear Yuletide Writer spreadsheet I couldn't not write this story.
> 
> To any readers not familiar with this fandom, Edwin's parenthetical asides to self are a canonical part of how he speaks. (So is the constant stream of creative insults!)


End file.
